MZ Web3 Fund

Representative General Partner Yuki leads investment decisions, supported by General Partner Yosuke. Yuki's background includes founding and exiting a fashion-tech startup to Zozo in 2017. Yosuke brings operational expertise from founding PayPay, Japan's largest mobile payment service, and serves as chairman of the StableCoin Working Group for the Japan Crypt Business Association.

The fund's principal partners leverage deep entrepreneurial networks in Japan's consumer-internet and crypto sectors. Yuki's connection to the Maezawa ecosystem via Zozo and Yosuke's standing in regulated Japanese payments create origination channels that span both creative Web3 projects and fintech infrastructure. The firm also publicly invites startups to apply for funding through its website.

The fund focuses on early-stage opportunities, spanning seed rounds through general venture-stage investments. The firm does not publicly differentiate between pre-product and post-revenue seed, but its emphasis on Web3-native verticals suggests a comfort with pre-traction technical teams as well as early-revenue gaming and platform startups.

The firm's public materials emphasize equity-style venture investing in companies and projects rather than liquid-token trading. Given its positioning as a private equity firm targeting NFT, metaverse, and developer-tooling businesses, it likely structures investments through traditional equity or simple agreements for future tokens where jurisdictional conditions allow, though the precise instrument mix is not publicly detailed.

The fund's name — MZ — references Yusaku Maezawa's initials, and Yuki's startup was acquired by Maezawa's Zozo in 2017. However, the fund does not disclose a formal capital or governance relationship with Maezawa's family office or other operating businesses. The connection is one of entrepreneurial lineage and network rather than a disclosed structural affiliation.

There is no publicly disclosed philanthropic foundation or educational program operated by the fund. The firm's stated mission — that Web3 and the metaverse can smooth income and information inequality — is embedded in its investment thesis rather than a separate grant-making entity.

The firm does not publicly disclose its limited partner base. Given Yuki's exit to Zozo and Yosuke's entrepreneurial liquidity from PayPay, a portion of capital likely originates with the general partners themselves, though this is not confirmed. The fund's structure as an early-stage private equity manager implies third-party LP capital alongside GP commitments.